The 17th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre has become a focal point for the ongoing controversy surrounding the Beni Sweif calamity, writes Hala Halim In a week that began with the announcement that President Hosni Mubarak had rejected the resignation of Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, tendered following the 5 September fire at a Cultural Palace in Beni Sweif in which well over 40 people died, the opening of the 17th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre (CIFET, 20-30 September) was bound to occasion much controversy. CIFET has been repeatedly discussed by groups campaigning for a proper investigation into the Beni Sweif disaster and demanding the moral and financial rights of victims and their families be secured (see Al-Ahram Weekly, 15-21 September). A variety of demands have been made, ranging from calls for the event to be cancelled or else its boycotting to petitioning that this year's CIFET be dedicated to the victims of Beni Sweif with commemorative events held throughout the festival. In the days that followed the announcement of Hosni's resignation writers, artists and public figures, some with "establishment" profiles and/or Ministry of Culture affiliations, published a statement countering those circulated by the campaigners. The counter-statement, which carried several hundred signatures, urged the minister to remain in his post, asserting that the "responsibility for what took place [at Beni Sweif] is not that of a single individual as much as it is that of a society that needs to rally all its energies and resources to protect the life, freedom, and dignity of every citizen" (see Al-Ahram, 17 September). Similar statements were issued by a group of Alexandrian writers, as well as by the Syndicate of Plastic Artists (see Al-Qahira, 20 September). By the time newspapers appearing on the eve of the opening of the CIFET (see, for example Al-Masri Al-Yom of 19 September) had announced that Writers and Artists for Change (WAC), one of the groups involved in the Beni Sweif campaign, together with a number of intellectuals, would picket the opening ceremony of the festival on Tuesday 20 September, the news had become obsolete. At a CIFET press conference on Monday Hosni had announced the cancellation of the opening ceremony. On Tuesday word had it that Mustafa Elwi, director of the General Organisation for Cultural Palaces (GOCP), had been removed from his post (see Al-Ahram, 21 September). The two decisions were not seen in an altogether positive light by groups that had taken an oppositional stance on Beni Sweif. Granted, students from the Academy of Arts (AA) feel that the cancellation "is much appreciated" and that several of their requests, including a collage of works by some of their colleagues who died in the accident should be shown at the festival, have been met, according to Mona Abu Sedeira, a postgraduate student and a member of the AA Committee for the Monitoring of Procedures Concerning the Beni Sweif Disaster. Others, however, found neither solace nor justice in the decisions. To novelist Mohamed El-Bisatie, a founding member of WAC, Elwi's removal continues the established pattern of scapegoating: "Elwi could well have made the excuse that he was given hardly any funding: the GOCP is in a state of collapse. Even if the minister's resignation had been accepted what is needed is that he face prosecution for the cumulative negligence that led to the disaster. He has substantial funds at his disposal, but he allocates them to altogether different matters." For El-Bisatie, the cancellation of the CIFET's opening ceremony was not in homage to the victims of Beni Sweif, but for security reasons, for "fear that any form of celebration of the event would inflame people's feelings further and that all this might result in embarrassment in front of foreign visitors to the festival." In place of picketing the opening ceremony members of WAC, in collaboration with other independent groups that have taken a stand on the disaster, held a protest at the Opera House on Tuesday, 20 September, where, clad in black, they distributed a statement "in solidarity with the victims of Beni Sweif". The statement, after listing examples of negligence during and after the calamity, adds that "[i]nstead of bearing complete responsibility for the disaster, the State mobilised its media and false intellectuals to justify the crimes of negligence and corruption, not to mention laying the blame on the victims themselves." Signed by the Fifth of September Group (FSG), WAC, Kifaya, Youth for Change, Physicians for Change and Women for Democracy, the statement goes on to make four demands: that the victims should be treated as "martyrs" and that they and/or their families should receive "all due compensation and honour"; that the "Ministers of Culture, Interior and Health, the Governor of Beni Sweif, and all senior and junior employees implicated in the calamity should be tried"; that "[m]inisterial spending should be rationalised by directing the budgets of elite ceremonies and festivals that have nothing to do with the people to genuine and safe cultural service throughout Egypt"; and that all "[s]tate theatres should meet international security standards for theatre buildings." Members of the FSG say that cancelling the festival was not among their demands; rather, they are seeking a full investigation into the disaster and the prosecution of those responsible. The cancellation of the opening ceremony, as actress and member of FSG Nehad Abul-Enein sees it, is merely a security measure. Concurring with her is theatre critic and FSG member Rasha Abdel-Monein, for whom this and the dedication of the 17th CIFET to the victims of Beni Sweif are empty gestures. "So far there has been no financial compensation to the families of victims, official lists of those who died in Beni Sweif have not been disclosed, nor is there a concerted effort on the part of CIFET organisers to circulate commemorative volumes about artists and critics who lost their lives in the disaster," says Abdel-Moneim. The charge of "elitism" in the collective statement of 20 September is one that FSG is keen on tempering, explaining that it is not directed against the international troupes that the CIFET is hosting, many of which both Abul-Enein and Abdel-Monein acknowledge are poor, their presence being an opportunity for contact between different fringe theatres. Elitism, elaborates their FSG colleague, theatre critic Menha El-Batrawi, is more a matter of the Ministry of Culture's lavish spending on activities that take place in the capital while provincial Egyptian troupes are starved of funds. "The state treats the provinces with contempt: unlike state-sponsored or even fringe troupes in Cairo, the government treats troupes from the provinces like poor relations, although it is they who are keeping the theatre scene going in the rest of the country," she says. Watching the controversy from a position that she is keen to describe as that "of an outsider", Martha Coigny, honorary president of the New York-based International Theatre Institute/ UNESCO, in Cairo as chairperson of the pre- selection viewing committee for CIFET, comments that "what troubled me was that the festival was being used as a kind of political football being tossed back and forth". While the "underlying problem," she told Al-Ahram Weekly, "is very serious and should be addressed, CIFET itself should not be accused of being a privileged venue. It is in line with experimental theatre: poor but noisy and original, so there's nothing elite about it in that sense." CIFET, she insists, "is a poor festival: it offers technical assistance and accommodation for troupes in the official competition, but most the companies have some assistance from their home countries, and some are paying out of their pockets." Drawing on the trauma of 9/11 for comparison, Coigny offers that "when a national tragedy like Beni Sweif happens, at least in the US they tend to slam the gates on anything international, so I was concerned that they would cancel the festival and I'm grateful they didn't." Describing the CIFET as "a valuable asset to Egypt," Coigny suggests that the event "helps to heal, particularly knowing that participants have come from a number of similar disasters, the world being what it is". Involved with CIFET since 1996 (in which year she was head of the jury), Coigny has been able to detect shifts in trends: on the Arab front, it was "the usual suspects" -- Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia -- that participated in the past, but since 2001, during which time she has been returning annually to chair the viewing committee, "what began to change was work from Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait, so there is this emergence of theatre from Arab countries that were not attached to the European tradition". This growing trend at CIFET, says Coigny, calls attention to Egypt and the region, and the event also allows work from the rest of the world to be seen here. For the programme of the CIFET, see Listings Below is the text of the address that Martha Coigny, chairperson of the viewing committee for the 17th CIFET, had prepared for the cancelled opening ceremony "Jean-Louis Barrault once said that there is one true nation in the world and that is the nation of theatre. Tonight we gather here in Cairo as citizens of that nation -- a nation in mourning for the tragedy of Beni Sweif. "The victims of the fire in the Cultural Palace at Beni Sweif were citizens of our theatre nation -- our children, our colleagues, our students and our audience. They were part of our theatre future. We can hope for the future and plan for the future, but we are never able to predict it. Theatre's future grows in corners -- it is found in small, young, modest, hidden places. Mostly they are safe. Sometimes they are not. "This brutal accident happened just 15 days ago. It has dimmed the excitement that has surrounded preparations for the 17th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre. But it has also laid bare the real value of festival celebrations. It is the act of gathering artists together for work and understanding that makes a festival essential. "So far, Egypt has given us 16 years of discovery of a theatre world unknown to most of us. She has given us 16 years of welcome to show our work from all over the rest of the world. As we are allowed to know others through their arts and theatre, we recognise our brothers and sisters. "This year has produced a vibrant and complicated harvest of work. The Viewing Committee is, once again, made up of Ginka Tscholakova-Henle, Jean-Michel Muenier and me. We have looked at all of the entries to determine if they are experimental and, therefore, eligible for the festival. There were 73 entries from 53 countries, embracing Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North America. "Many of the participants will arrive in spite of difficulties. Theatre is still a dangerous activity for many people. A festival is a place to gain courage, begin friendships and take joy in the creativity of our planet. "The first e-mail of support and concern that I received on 9/11 was from the Palestinian Children's Centre for Culture in Ramallah. So, I know the healing and strength that will come to you from your guests at this festival. "If Beni Sweif has broken our hearts, then let this festival season be a remembrance and a celebration of the people that we lost. May our future be marked by what they taught us."
